


Into the Mist || This is Not the End

by Adel Mortescryche (Mortescryche)



Series: yoimafiaweek prompt fills [5]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Absent Characters, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternative Universe - Gangsters, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bittersweet Ending, Catharsis, Cathartic Narrative, Day Five, Family, Friendship, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, I'm sorry in advance everyone this is going to hurt but it's meant to heal as well, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, POV: Katsuki Mari, What Comes After the End, Women Being Awesome, prompt: smoke/healing, yoimafiaweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-12-30 14:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12110376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mortescryche/pseuds/Adel%20Mortescryche
Summary: She’s not sure if she should be surprised or not, seeing the familiar sight of a tall, pale haired man standing right at the spot she’s headed to.(or: it'll always be the Katsuki family to the rescue. Always. Always. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.)





	Into the Mist || This is Not the End

**Author's Note:**

> Well, okay. This is fill is set in an AU where Victor is a hitman for the Russian Mob, while Yuuri is a business man. The narrative of the fic is pretty much self-explanatory, really.
> 
> The title of the fic comes from two very different songs. The first, Into the Mist, is from Eivør Pálsdóttir's _Í Tokuni_ , though it's translation is closer to 'In the Mist', if google hasn't led me wrong. The second is from The Bravery's _This is Not the End_.
> 
> Head on down for trigger warnings. Pretty sure the tags have most of the warnings you'll need, but to be on the safe side...

She’s not sure if she should be surprised or not, seeing the familiar sight of a tall, pale haired man standing right at the spot she’s headed to.

Mari paused in place, breathing in deeply. Wondered if it wasn’t too late to just turn around and head back home. But, no, she’d already avoided coming with her parents, earlier on. Hadn’t been able to stomach it, so she’d walked out of the house and ignored the sad look her father shot her as she stepped past him. She’d proceeded to spend nearly the entire day outside, drifting through their down. Down to the beach. Most people who’d seen her out had been kind enough to give her soft nods of acknowledgement before heading their own way, not bothering her more than necessary. The evening mist had already set in, a mix of the ever present humidity and the chilling air, enough so that Mari had found herself walking the paths of her childhood home in a misty haze, the road just growing dimmer in the growing twilight.

No companion by her side except her pack of cigarettes, which she’d nearly gotten through within the day.

…he’d have been so _angry_ with her.

It’s like a signal set off through the space between them, really. She doesn’t even need to get any closer, or do anything. Victor is somehow able to tell anyway, his gaze switching from the stone to her in a smooth arc, catching, stilling. And while it’s about as difficult to meet his gaze now as it had been, three years ago, and in each year after that… she forces herself to step forward anyway. Because, really, she owed it to _all_ of them.

“Mari,” he murmured, when she pulled up beside him, tongue still stumbling sharper than really necessary on the ‘r’.

“Fag?” she threw back brusquely, shaking her still open pack at him.

It makes him blink, and give an involuntary snort of laughter, reaching out without complaint. His fingers still over the cardboard and packing when he notices there’s only two left, but he gingerly tugged one out anyway, not saying anything.

Good. Mari isn’t quite sure she’s ready to hear anything about her smoking habits from Victor, of all people. It would hit too close to home.

~~_Too close but not enough- what the fuck was she supposed to do with the gaping hole in her ches-_ ~~

“So. How’ve you been?”

The words are rough, especially so since they’d tumbled free of her mouth before she could say anything else more incriminating.

Victor gave her a long look over the click and flash of his lighter, and didn’t bother saying anything, instead taking a long drag of his cigarette. The smoke that escapes his lips and nostrils bleeds into the murk of the mist laying low over the graveyard, softly limning the stone monuments surrounding them. Mari feels her heart stutter inside her chest, and looks away, blindly shaking out the last stick left in her pack.

“Here,” he said, reaching out, and she obligingly ducked in to get a light.

It’s… hard. To meet his gaze, even now. Largely because there’s a beast breathing slow and deep somewhere in the vicinity of her gut. Just waiting to be unleashed, so she could get her due.

Her brother’s blood is on the hands of this man, and she can’t even hate him for it. Not when he hates himself so much more than she ever could.

So, unable to match gazes with him, she turns her attention back to their family shrine, eyes instead tripping over Yuuri’s name, already beginning to look worn in. It makes her blink, a persistent itch tugging at the corners of her eyes, but she ignores it, making herself take a quick glance around the monument.

Freshly washed, and an offering set into place. Flowers, aside from the ones her parents left in the morning. But that would be Victor, again. He might be a _gaijin,_ but he sure as hell wouldn’t let his ignorance of her, _their,_ culture let him disrespect her brother’s final resting place.

Victor sighed, the sound hoarse through the smoke filling his lungs, and Mari wants to _choke._

“You shouldn’t have come. You _know_ you shouldn’t have come.” She bit out under breath, fingers clenching around the cigarette she still held. Nearly burning herself. It didn’t really make a difference to her, though. She’d burnt herself on them enough times in the last few years.

Victor doesn’t answer, and she’s tempted to throw her cigarette right in his face. Instead, she gets it back to her lips to take a deep, calming drag that settles her, just a bit.

It’s probably for the best she hadn’t stopped by the Nishigori household to see if Yuuko-chan was interested in keeping her company. While the younger girl wouldn’t have taken any of Victor’s strong-and-silent shit, she’d probably have made enough noise to attract unwanted attention to them.

“You do know that your being here like clockwork every year on this day makes it _easy_ to find you, Nikiforov,” the words hissed out of her in a gruff rush. Not as emotional as what had been clawing to be let out before, but maybe just as honest for that.

They made Victor shift in place, and he reached out for her empty pack so he could tap out the ash inside. She didn’t say anything more when she handed it over, and her patience was probably what actually got him to speak in the end.

“Maybe. But I can handle myself. And this is more important,” he said, soft, his accent lining up oddly with his Japanese. So much more fluent than the previous year.

The fact that he’s still trying to learn makes the empty space in her chest _throb._

They remain in companionable silence, after that. It doesn’t hurt as much as it did before, it doesn’t strain her nerves. The beast sleeping within her is content waiting for another day, breathing deep. When they finish their cigarettes, both putting them out on their heels before dropping their filters into her empty pack, for the first time, she feels ready to look up and stare him in the eye until he relents, quietly following after her when she leaves.

She has no words to speak. She’s spoken her pain to the small shrine they have at home, spoken it in the dark of night when her parents are fast asleep, in the halflight of dawn when the air seems to stand still. She’s stood before Yuuri’s picture, then, settled down on her knees, craving a fag and telling herself no because there isn’t quite anything like her baby brother’s two dimensional smiling face to make a twinge of guilt run through her.

Victor doesn’t glance back either. He’s probably said all he has to say.

Her mother’s seen him, on the edges of the graveyard when they go together in the mornings. Just close enough so they know he’s there, but far enough that he could easily draw away if they attempted to say anything. Mari has no idea why he chooses to stay when she comes, but she suspects it’s because it’s too late in the day and he’s too raw and yearning to back away even when he wants to.

She understands the feeling. She feels it every time she sees him, after all. Standing like an earthbound spirit in front of her brother’s grave. If she didn’t know better, she’d think that he _was_ tied to the grave, for all that his name wasn’t writ on the stone like family would be. That she sees him on Yuuri’s death day each year at the same place, and he just… never leaves.

~~_The thought makes her sick to the stomach. It couldn’t be what Yuuri wanted. This_ couldn’t _be what Yuuri wanted. So-_~~

“You should stay. At the onsen.” She said, the words tumbling out of her again, when they’re back on the streets. Victor ignores her, of course.

He looks alien in the dark of a Hasetsu night, with them surrounded by the small winding streets and old shops and residences of her and Yuuri’s childhood. The mist had finally lifted, making it easier to watch their steps, but she keeps glancing at him instead. Fitted fully in a black suit and waistcoat, down to a heavy black trench coat over the top. The black of his tie is stark against the white of his shirt. He’s so perfectly put together he looks like he belongs on a magazine cover, or in some American spy movie.

It feels like a lie, because she remembers him looking the same when he’d appeared at the onsen well after they’d been to the crematorium and come back, and everyone had gone home. Mari’s mom had taken one look at his pale face and the emptiness of his eyes in his head and had tugged him inside without even an ounce of hesitation, no matter that it was a social faux pas for him to be under their roof at all. He’d been perfectly put together even as he gracefully took off his expensive black shoes, had followed her mother in to the family shrine, and had collapsed there like a puppet whose strings had been cut, not moving for the rest of the night. Or the nights after. Not until he just disappeared, one day, without leaving any word of where he was going, or what he planned to do next.

The emptiness in his eyes back then had made her think she didn’t want to know, what he planned to do. She almost didn’t think she’d ever see him again, not until she died herself and met both him and her brother on the other side.

Another glance to the man walking beside her makes her think that he looks… better, now. More at peace. Still tired, and a little lost, but some of the emptiness had left his eyes to make way for something else, finally. Even if she couldn’t pin point what exactly it was.

He’s closer to her in age than her brother had been, she knows. He could have _been_ another brother to her, in another life.

He comes to an abrupt stop when he recognizes the direction Mari’s been leading them in, but she just gets a hand out and around his elbow to keep pulling him forward, ignoring the tight sound that erupted from his chest.

“I can’t,” he said, the closer they got to the onsen. “Mari, please, I _can’t.”_

“You can, and you _will._ ” She returned, blunt, and kept pulling him onwards.

By the time they’re in sight of the entrance to _Yu-topia Katsuki,_ to her home, he doesn’t look nearly as well put together as he did before. She ignores it, though, and ignores the way his eyes have gotten pinched at the corners. And the way he seems to be gasping for breath a whole lot more than he really should – she _knows_ he’s got a whole host of reasons to be more fit than her.

It’s like something cracks open the moment they step through inside, pausing at the _genkan_ to switch their shoes out for slippers. He staggers forward, and almost collapses on top of her. It’s a good thing she’d been expecting something like this, though, because she’d probably have collapsed like a sack of rice with a slit in its side if she hadn’t. His height and weight were more than enough to overwhelm her when she was off her guard.

Even if she was certain she could get a punch in his gut to make him stagger back, if she had to. She just didn’t _want_ to.

“Y’know, you and my brother are more alike than either of you ever thought you were,” she said, getting his right arm over her shoulders, and ignoring the pained noise that escaped him at her words. “You’re both so _melodramatic._ You’d think you’d have learnt better, by now. You’re certainly old enough.”

He looks like he’s going to keel right over if she tries to move him without any additional support, so she gets her free arm around his waist, easily holding him steady. It looked like years of managing the onsen’s more drunken day guests was finally paying off, because Victor had about as much control over his long, unwieldly limbs as they did.

There’s a gasp from the front of the entryway, and when Mari looks up, it’s to find her mother standing there, hands clasped over her mouth and looking like she wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry.

“ _Tadaima,”_ Mari said blandly, and didn’t say anything when her mom rushed to get some slippers out for them both, seeing as Victor was all but indisposed and she was fresh out of hands to do anything herself.

*

“He offered to have me adopted into your family, you know.”

Mari blinks at him dully, head resting against her fist and a cup of sake grasped in the other. Her father’s dozing beside her, definitely done for the night, while her mother had stepped away into the kitchen to pick up something salty for them to end the night with.

Victor’s staring into his _ochoko_ like it contains the mysteries of the universe, not the last dregs of the sake she’d topped it with a moment ago. The image he offers up makes her snort, casually ignoring the wounded look it makes him shoot her way.

The words themselves, though…

It makes her wonder, really. What the hell had happened between Yuuri and this guy, in those few months her brother disappeared off the map in St. Petersburg? He’d headed there for a business conference, a trip that wasn’t even expected to exceed 48 hours, and the next thing she knew, he’d been calling them from a burner phone and saying that he would be out of touch for a while. She’s heard of whirlwind romances, but she hadn’t thought Yuuri would disappear on one and bring back a blushing bride at any point.

Not that Victor was a blushing bride. Even imagining it makes her want to cackle a little helplessly, because it was a terrible mental image, one that actually sends a bite of pain through a chest when she thinks of just how much fun it could have been to tease her brother about it.

Her baby brother. Off romancing Russian hitmen on business trips, calling to say that he was probably running away to America. Coming back home on ice, with a specter of a man following the shadow of what remained of him.

A specter of a man who somehow looked a lot more human now, and relatable, with all his layers thrown off, left in just a thin white shirt and his trousers, the buttons at the top gaping open because he gave in to the need to breathe after downing some five cups of sake or so. At this point, he’s barely a specter, only a man. A tired and sad man who smiled up at her mother when she came back, patting him gently on the top of his head.

“You should stay, Vicchan,” she said, in halting English. For all that she was fluent with the language, and managed well enough with any foreign tourists they might have, she’d usually just deferred to Mari and Yuuri, or even her husband, more interested in making good food and keeping everyone’s bellies full.

Her words take a moment to register, but when they do, Mari is already ready to catch the cup when it slips from Victor’s grasp.

“You should stay,” her mother said. “Yuuri would want you to stay. Even if he isn’t here anymore, _we_ could adopt you. And you could stay.”

Oh wow. He actually looked like he was going to cry, there. Mari shot her mother a _look,_ but her mom didn’t bother to acknowledge it.

Okay then. Apparently they were going the hard route. Gotcha.

(No one seemed to believe her when she told people that her mother and Yuuri were the cruel ones. She and her dad were just big softies at heart – but her mom could cut people to the bone with words as easily as she could do the same with her kitchen knives.)

(Yuuri had been the same. Just the same. His taste in lovers had to account for _something,_ after all.)

“I- I _couldn’t._ Katsuki-san, I- _Hiroko-san_ -”

“ _Mama,_ Vicchan.” her mother says, with about as much inexorable strength in her words as the tide of the open sea.

Mari almost thinks she’s going to see him shatter into a thousand pieces all over again. But, instead, he finds strength in _some_ untapped reserve, and blindly reaches for her hand so he could grab at the cup she’d just caught. She lets him, because really, her mom was being hard enough that _she’d_ have needed a drink in his place, too.

He looks almost pathetically grateful when she leans over to pour him another cup of sake.

Her mom just kept on smiling, comfortably, settling herself down beside Victor, who looks like he’s not sure if he should stay in the same place or attempt to crawl away feebly.

You’d think he’d be made of firmer stuff than this.

 _You’re being mean,_ the Yuuri voice in her head murmured, sounding amused, and she sighed, pouring herself another cup as well.

When she checks in on him the next morning, sleeping in the room that used to be Yuuri’s but is now just a guest room, he’s still there. Dozing in faint streams of light coming through the window, looking like it’s the first time he’s rested in years.

*

_“We need to leave. It’s not safe here, you know it’s not.”_

_“Yuuri- дорогой-”_

_“Vitya, we_ need to leave.”

 _“But- what if- Yuuri I_ can’t lose you.”

 _The look on Yuuri’s face when he turns to look back is as steady as a mountain weathering a storm. It makes Victor’s heart ache, a biting sweetness that fills him to the brim, almost spilling over. He loves this man. It’s a present thought, a fear - he_ loves this man.

_“We can go to Hasetsu,” Yuuri says. “We’ll be safe there. I know we will.”_

_Okay. Okay, Yuuri. Okay._

**Author's Note:**

>  **TRIGGERS:** The biggest one is _definitely_ Major Character Death. Leading on from that, this fic is set three years after the character has died - the Katsuki family has largely made their peace with the situation. Victor... is getting there. Keep in mind that Victor had been in a pretty bad place right after Yuuri died, and Mari _does_ think back to those moments, to compare the Victor in the present to how he'd been in the past. If there's anything else any of you catch sight of that you think should be put here for later readers, feel free to share it with me. I'll add it ASAP.
> 
> ***
> 
>  **Translation Notes, if you're on mobile or don't notice the hover text:**  
>  дорогой - dorogoy//darling
> 
> ***
> 
>  **AN:**...um. Hi. I hope I didn't hurt any of you too badly with this fill. In my defense, the prompts for day five practically begged me to go with angst. I managed to convince myself to switch out the angstier ideas for the previous fills. The day one fill, for one, would have been _really_ bad if I'd gone with angst over humor.
> 
> That said, hello! If you're new to these prompt fills, welcome. If you're here from the previous posts... welcome back! *wry grin* 
> 
> On a completely different note, if any of you are interested in the music that served as atmosphere to this fic, here you go, in order of use:  
> Eivør Pálsdóttir's - Í Tokuni  
> Sakamoto Ryuichi - Sadness  
> Kajiura Yuki - I Talk to the Rain  
> James Newton Howard - The Gravel Road
> 
>  **Kudos and comments are very welcome!** Unload your feels and agony at what I've put you and Victor through, if you decided to click on this one and stuck through to the end. I'm ready. Also, oh man, I really should learn how to be kinder to Victor...
> 
> I'm now on [Tumblr](https://adelmortescryche.tumblr.com/). Feel free to drop by and say hi, and flail at me about YOI, KHR or any other fandom that catches your fancy. I don't bite. *grins*


End file.
